


Head in the Clouds

by NerdInABlueBox



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Comfort, Gen, Legion of doom - Freeform, Puny super suit, Rip can't sleep, Whump, Winter Whumperland 2017, care, headache
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 04:08:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13227768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NerdInABlueBox/pseuds/NerdInABlueBox
Summary: Rip comes to terms with what the Legion did to him and what he did. Lot's of tea is mentioned.Aftermath of Land of the Lost, because there needed to be more elaboration. Also - for the winter whumperland 2017 fic exchange





	Head in the Clouds

**Author's Note:**

> Hehehehe it's still christmas right??

They kissed, and soon Rip’s mindscape was no more.

Rip gasped to life, breathing heavily as he took in his surroundings.

“Where am I?” he asked.

“Home.” answered Sara.

Rip sighed and then chuckled. He was no longer under the control of the Legion. He tried to sit up and quickly realized that he was still injured from his fall from the horse. He winced but tried to cover it up with a smile. Naturally, Sara noticed. 

“Rip, are you alright?”

Rip ignored this and tried to get to his feet. The minute he stood he began to collapse.

“Alright, let’s just-” Sara set him back onto the med chair and attached the medical cuff.

Gideon’s voice came from over head: “Mr. Hunter has 4 cracked ribs and the rest are bruised. He also has an unhealed cut across his stomach.”

“Oh” said Rip. It was a very blatant statement for the condition he was in.

“I’ll administer a mild sedative while I heal them”

“No” protested Rip, very suddenly.

“Are you sure, Captain?” asked Gideon who was growing concerned along with the rest of the team there.

“Yes. Just, heal me without a sedative”

“That’s going to hurt quite a bit” said Stein.

“Better that than…”

“Than what?” asked Sara.

“Just, I want to be awake. Not...asleep. In my own head.”

Sara understood what Rip meant. She had her own fair share of sleepless nights.  
Gideon made a confirmation noise and started to heal Rip. The ensuing patchwork was hell. He felt a strong burning across his entire abdomen. He couldn’t help but to groan. He squeezed a hand that he didn’t realize he had been holding. He looked to his left. It was Sara. After around ten minutes, Gideon finally announced, “I’m done, Captain. I recommend you don’t strain yourself.”

“Will do, Gideon.” Rip shut his eyes for a brief moment, then stood up. This time, he could stand on his own.

Breakfast was at 0800 hours. It always was on the waverider. Rip walked in, tired as ever. It was impossible to sleep, knowing what he did. The nightmares were too much. Everyone stared at him when he walked in. He tried not to notice as he made himself tea.   
Sara came in after him. The moment she walked in, everyone went back to their business. Conversations resumed, people who were eating continued eating, and Ray went back to the maintenance he was doing on his suit. It was quite comical actually. The suit was microscopic and Ray had to use a magnifying glass and an incredibly small screwdriver do do whatever he was doing.

Sara strode in and came to a stop next to Rip. The coffee maker was coincidentally next to the hot water boiler. The two stood in silence as Sara waited for the coffee to brew and Rip waited for the water to boil. Sara tried to make eye contact with Rip but he avoided it. He obviously couldn’t bring himself to face her. He put a tea bag into the mug, and then proceeded to pour the hot water into his mug. He then added milk, and went off to the table. A minute later, Sara’s coffee was done and she followed. Sara ended up sitting across from Rip. He still avoided eye contact, instead he stared intently at his tea, watching it cool.

“Rip”

“Hmm” murmured Rip in response.

“Rip”

“What is it, Sara?”

“You should talk about it.”

 

“I’m afraid I have no idea as to what you are referring to.”

“Rip you spent God knows how long as a random filmmaker making screenplays based off of memories that he wasn’t aware of! And then the Legion of Doom kidnapped you and manipulated your brain into an entirely separate person who was evil and trying to kill all of us! Don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m referring to.”

“Can’t I just...not talk about it? At least not yet I don’t-” Rip’s thoughts naturally ended up drifting to exactly what Sara had referred to, and now he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He was sucked into the past. Images of Sara lying in a bloody puddle, of wounded knights on the battlefield wearing metal implants in their heads, of Damien torturing him and ripping that tooth out of him. He couldn’t escape them. There was a sharp pain in his head. It wouldn’t stop. Rip closed his eyes, hoping that the pain would lessen in a second, but it never did. It intensified.

Rip stood up suddenly, scooting his chair away from the table. The room was silent. Everyone was looking at him.

“Excuse me” he mumbled, he tried to step away from the table but it was then that the pain almost doubled. He couldn’t help but cry out.

“Rip?”

He didn’t respond. Instead he clutched his head, trying to block out the pain.

“Rip? Rip!”

The next thing he knew, Rip was on the ground in a ball. The pain was unbearable. He was groaning, but completely unaware of his surroundings. He heard a distant voice say,

“Take him to the med bay.”  
He was picked up by Mick who was now rushing down the halls of the waverider, towards the medbay. The rest of the legends quickly followed.

Mick set him down on the bed in med bay. Stein then attached the scanner to Rip’s head while the others were holding him down. Gideon activated the scanner and the blue lights rotated around Rip’s head.

“Nothing seems to be wrong physically. My only guess is that when we brought him out of his mindscape, it might have been too drastic of a change in his brain chemistry and now his other systems are compensating.”

“So what is that supposed to mean?” asked Mick.

“Well we keep him comfortable until his body adjusts. I can give his pain killers, but I’m not sure exactly how much that would help.” said Gideon.

Rip’s head was still lulling around.. His eyes were squeezed shut. His hands had managed to come up to his head again.

Sara felt responsible. She had pushed too much. It had only been a few days since they had “brought” Rip back, mentally at least. Of course he hadn’t been ready to talk about it. Who knows what had happened before the Legion had turned him evil. She put her hand on Rip’s shoulder. Rip immediately swatted it away. “No get away!” Shouted Rip. His eyes opened, frantically looking around him.

“Rip, it’s us! Calm down!”

That seemed to have got to him. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to grapple what was and what wasn’t reality.

“Sara I...I shot you”

“Rip it’s okay. You’re safe now.”

“I…”

Rip looked around. He realized that he was in med bay

“What happened to me?”

“You tell me” answered Sara.

“I just remember, I don’t know just a really bad headache and then here I am.”

“Do you know what caused it?”

“No, it was as if a switch was flipped and in came this pain” he winced.

“Gideon is going to monitor you for a while. We’re going to find out what we can do to help.”

“I would rather not be confined to med bay, if that’s alright with you, Sara.”

“I don’t know. Gideon?”

Gideon, at least, understood what was best for Rip.

“It wouldn’t be the worst for Captain Hunter to walk around. At least a little bit.”

“Well, fine then.” She ignored the fact that Gideon had referred to Rip as Captain.

For the second time in those few days, Rip got to his feet from the med bay chair, and with the help of Sara, made his way back to his room.

The next day, everyone seemed to be more on edge whenever Rip was around. They watched his every move, as if he could shatter any second. Naturally, this annoyed Rip. He knew it was because they must’ve cared, but he still didn’t like it. As a result, he spent most of his time in his study, or, more like Sara’s study, as apparently she was captain now. He researched this and that, sat down for some light reading, really anything to prevent himself from thinking about the past. He was nose deep in some novel about vampires when Sara walked in holding a mug.

“I made you some tea” said Sara.

Rip looked up. “Oh, thank you” Rip took the tea and took a sip. It was hot, earl gray. He placed it on the coffee table next to him. There was silence between them. Sara decided to sit down in the chair next to him. He was contemplating his next words carefully. Sara watched him do this. She was planning to speak up herself, when Rip did instead.

“Do you think things will go back to the way they were?”

“You mean like me being captain?”

“No no not that. Just, the way people look at me.”

“Look at you?”

“Yeah I shot you Sara. I betrayed the entire team. How could you possibly forgive me?” Rip already seemed to be drifting back into the world of painful memories. Sara couldn’t let this happen again. He didn’t deserve that pain. No one did.

 

“I do forgive you, Rip. You weren’t yourself.” said Sara.

“I...I still did though. I was aware. I made the decision.”

“But your mind was warped by the Legion.”

 

“But that’s what keeps me awake at night. It’s not the torture or the soldiers of camelot. It’s the moment you were dead, because of me.”

 

Without warning, Sara leaned over and hugged Rip. After a minute, he hugged back, and for that moment, everything was fine.


End file.
